Michael Savage Criticizes Dartmouth Atheist Group for Questioning the Legacy of Mother Teresa

Michael Savage is a conservative talk show host. Kind of like Rush Limbaugh, but not as popular. He recently heard about how atheists at Dartmouth were going to hold an event where Mother Teresa‘s legacy was discussed, with a nod to Christopher Hitchens‘ evisceration of her in his book The Missionary Position.

But since you’re not supposed to talk about Mother Teresa in anything but a positive light, Savage decided to call the students names instead of having a productive discussion about the subject (beginning at the 1:00 mark):

… I’d like to point you to an article that came out tonight that’s rather troublesome. I don’t know whether I’m gonna ruin your night, but there’s a group of snot-nosed elite children who have never worked a day in their lives at Dartmouth College, which is one of the worst colleges in America. It used to be one of the best colleges, and then it suddenly became like all of the Ivy League institutions of lower living, that used to be known as institutions of higher learning, but Michael Savage retitled them institutions of lower living — Degenerates from top to bottom running everything. And now it reaches a new low. An atheist group at Dartmouth College is planning an anti-Mother Teresa event, if you believe this…

Savage references the campus-wide email the Atheists, Humanists, Agnostics at Dartmouth sent out which refers to Mother Teresa as a “lying, thieving Albanian dwarf.” Those are Hitchens’ infamous words, of course, but Savage didn’t make that clear. He makes it sound like the Dartmouth students were just throwing ad hominem attacks her way. They weren’t.

If Savage really wanted to have this discussion, he could have easily invited one of the students running the event on air to discuss the criticism. He didn’t do that. He just attacked them from afar because they dared to discuss a taboo subject.

This is what I love about college atheist groups. They tackle subjects very few groups would want to talk about, whether it’s the existence of God, the notion of religion being a negative force in the world, or the legacy of perceived saints. People should be cheering on those discussions and welcoming the opportunity to defend their side of the issue.

Asking tough questions isn’t the problem. Criticizing the very idea of these discussions in the first place is. Savage should know better.